day 44

Spring is here! I think? I can't really tell. It's still as cold and rainy for the past few days, except with a bit more sunlight that somehow gives the illusion of warmth. And some trees are staring to flower...

Spring blossoms and sunshine, just around the corner

Dull weather aside, I had a great weekend. I spent the most of Saturday morning being productive, doing homework and housework. I went over to the Breretons after that to prepare for Singapore Night.

The only bad thing that happened was my fortyish minute wait at the bus stop in town. Once the bus came all was good though. Rachael and I cooked up a pot of chicken rice and two small trays of pineapple tarts.


These babies are filled with the whole of my Friday evening

Considering neither of us had made the dishes before, we did pretty well. It helped that everyone else was only trying these dishes for the first time. They loved it, and cleaned up the whole lot.

Surprisingly they really enjoyed the chilli too. The next day at church Rachael brought the leftover chilli, and they were dipping anything they could find into it. They almost seemed consumed by it. I think I started something here.

The grand irony of it all was that I didn't have any chilli. Ha.

Anyway, after dinner on Saturday I did a little presentation on Singapore's history, culture, and our assembly. It was really interactive: everyone was asking questions and things. Good stuff. They are really into these sort of activities: presentations, quizzes and games. I imagine this was how the Singapore fellowship might have been like in its younger hey days.

Later on the conversation tables were turned on the locals, and we began talking about the Irish culture. I'm still trying work my head around it, but it's fascinating to see how things like sport and Catholicism permeates the ethos here.

More about that next time... Hitting the sack now. Good night!

day 40

It's been a busy week. I've actually been doing homework. I'm a little bit proud of that.

Joofei was over in Dublin too! He arrived on Tuesday, and we went out for a bit of a tour. We managed to see quite a few places: trinity college, the garden of remembrance, a couple of museums...

He was also generous enough to buy me dinner that night. We went to a nice place in town called the Pig's Ear. Their foods had names that sounded just as strange but tasted good anyway.

That was a pretty long day with all that walking, so we were both quite exhausted by the time we got home. One of us slept really well.

The next day I went to school as usual and Joofei went north to see giant's causeway. Not much excitement there for me.

Anyway, this weekend we're having Singapore night with the churchfolk. We're going to make chicken rice! I hope it goes well.

Dublin lookin' pretty for the cam'ra.

In other news the weather's improving a bit. We're consistently getting more sun. If someone could send more my way from Singapore that'll be win-win.

day 36

It's been a pretty good week. Most of it cruised by. I spent the weekend over at the Brereton's. We had a nice chat Saturday night. Slept in a bit on Sunday morning and woke up to a yummy breakfast/ brunch. Oats, and the works: Bacon, eggs, beans, white pudding, toast...

School's okay. I'm starting to find linguistics classes slightly underwhelming though. Partly because I've learnt most of what they are teaching now, but also because the expectations for school seems lower.

It was a bit of a shock when I first started classes and the lecturers were talking about how to pass the module. There were mentions of past failures. I guess students and the school culture here play a large part in that. There's hardly a hint of that self-pressurising schizophrenia that characterises Singaporean mugging.

But yeah. That really struck me; in not many modules at nus do you hear professors and lectures talk about passing. Passing is a taboo – an awkward consolation for not getting an A – the narrowly inevitable misfortune of the cursed bell curve.

I can only think of one exception: Algebra I. My professor even explicitly encouraged everyone to drop the module due to high failure rates... but then again that's an extreme. Algebra was tough.

The same challenge with math has carried over here too. I'm barely keeping pace with Topology classes. There seems so many things I need to read up on, because I don't have the backing of other topics that our lessons seems to relate to. I can't tell if I'm the only one struggling, or if my classmates are too.

On the bright side, things do balance out. I can redirect my time and energy from linguistics to math.

Please contact me if you understand this

One thing about studying here though: it seems old-fashioned. I've noticed most local students use paper notebooks, not electronic ones. Stationery here isn't very varied. A good half of the classrooms that I have lessons in have a black- not white- board. One of my lecturers has a tendency to call the projector the ohp. What's more backward is there actually are ohps around in school.

So it's oddly nostalgic being in class here. The last time I saw such technologies in a classroom was about fifteen years ago. It's understandable that the architecture of ucd kind of old (it's actually relatively modern), but it's slightly odd that its people and equipment are too.

Don't mistake this as complaining though; in fact it's quite the opposite. Being one late to catch on to smart gadgets and the latest apps, the tables are finally turned and alas! I am finally technologically advanced.

day 31

I just got back from a church friend's place. She was driving home from work when she found her home broken into.

Apparently there was an attempted break-in just last week. Its seems it was like the same guys.

And they knew what they were doing too. They climbed the gate into the back garden and broke through the door. Then they literally cut out the alarm system, leaving the casing at the kitchen sink.

It's almost as if the they didn't bother with the living area; it was untouched. They took straight to the bedrooms, drawers up on ends, belongings all over the place. They got some gold jewellery and cash.

They left behind a single woman who lives alone, shaken.

Jamie and I were at the O'Brien's for the meeting. It was never really said, but the meeting was cancelled because of the bad weather. We had a prayer instead, then went over to her place.

It was almost three hours after the break-in when we visited, and the police still hadn't arrived. I heard her neighbour who had dropped in say it was unlikely they would come.

Clearly, all the Dubliners were familiar with such happenings. The neighbour's next to Tom had been done (that's what they call it here) before. Neighbours were away when it happened. The doors were left open the whole day because that was part of the crime scene evidence. Police missing.

Another neighbour. Their kids, nine and twelve years old, found screaming, because they had returned from school to house no longer home.

Gangsters going knocking on the doors to see if people were home. Stay silent, they might think no one was in and break in. Answer, they could force their way in. To answer the door, or not?

Sometimes they go for the copper pipes or tanks. They walk out of the house, water gushing from the disconnected pipeline: thousands of dollars in damage. What copper they could nick would be traded for a hundred bucks. No eyebrows raised.

It's not that these stories are unheard of. In fact, it's clearly quite the opposite. What's frightening about these recounts is that they are not just stories. They are somebody's experiences.

Maybe it is because I've been privileged to grow up in a place where break-ins is not a common worry. Just from the way the locals talked about it today – the stories, the elliptical "got done" – shows that they even have a way of talking about break-ins. We in Singapore, don't.

The reality of having a home violated has never struck me so heavily before. I am going to bed tonight very sobered.

day 30

It snowed today! My first snow. It was pretty amazing. I stood out in the garden for a good ten minutes smiling to myself like a child. My landlady saw me from inside her house and waved. She must think I'm a crazy Asian.

The backyard that I live in, with snow

The snow slowed down eventually... It was snow drizzling for the rest of the evening after.

Real snow on fake grass

Sigh, so happy. It's been a really eventful weekend too! On Saturday, Jamie, Siobhan and I went out. Visited the history museum, which was quite interesting. I rushed through the end of it though, because the other two were getting hungry. I'll have to go back there some day.

Later that evening we went back to the O'Brien's. Anthony and Rachael came over and we played Cranium. That was super fun too.

Sunday was church, as usual.

I skipped school on Monday to go to Howth with Jamie and Siobhan. Totally worth it. Howth was beautiful. We hiked along the coast for a solid hour or so before getting the best fish and chips I've ever had. Howth definitely warrants another visit. I'll let the pictures talk:

Kids, this is where fish and chips come from

Check out the old guy being tough in his speedos

An Irish rock and my shadow



A Dutch and an Aussie

Where the heavens meet earth

This picture hardly measures up to the experience

There was more I wanted to write about but it's getting late. Don't want to oversleep again tomorrow. I've had a few of those mornings recently, and they weren't nice.

Good night.

day 26

Today was a beautiful day. There was sun! Light! Blue sky!

Sunshine of happiness flooding into my life

 

This guy brought his telescope out to take pictures

There's a new bakery down the street that opened three days ago. I was quite excited about it for a while, until I had their French loaf. It wasn't bad, just that the neighbourhood supermarket has better bread. They still have a chance to win me over with cakes and pastries though.

Even so they would have to be pretty good. There's another shop around the corner that has the yummiest éclairs I've had. That's a tough battle for the new bakery to fight.

True love has chocolate AND whipped cream

Oh oh oh, and my accomplishment of the week: I finally went out for a run! I figured there wasn't a point in holding it off any longer.

After a bit of procrastination, I pulled myself outdoors just before dinner. It was two degrees out. My legs never felt so naked before. I thought I felt my leg hairs stand in the cold... but then again I can't be sure.

I ran about three or four clicks? Pretty decent, especially considering my last run was about three weeks ago. I reckon the cold helps. It added a spring to my stride. Not to mention I didn't feel myself sweat.

I explored the neighbourhood a bit. Figured out how the roads join up to the nice park nearby. There was a weird fumy smell throughout most of my run though. I thought for a moment there was stuff burning somewhere, but I couldn't tell the fog from smoke. Other than that, it was a pleasant run.

Came home to do a cool down (ha ha) and had dinner. A nice hot pot of chilli con carne and half a loaf of subpar bread were waiting for me. Yum.

Cook a pot of chilli; toast a pan of bread

So back to today. Siobhan, Jamie and I went out. We watched American Hustle, then had Nandos. The show was so-so, but the company more than made up for it. It's been a good day.

day 24

Warning: linguisticy stuff ahead.

Dia duit (Hello).

Today was an interesting day, and I was having many nerdy thoughts about my encounters.

I had my first Irish class. It was an informal, student-led thing. I don't think there's going to be a follow-up lesson.

Anyway, there I met a localised Nigerian girl who had to double-check that I was Singaporean because I didn't sound the part. A third generation Japanese-Hawaiian guy then asked me where I learnt a "regular" accent. He meant American.

Afterward I went for another gathering to try to make more friends. I met this English guy who grew up in France. During the event he spoke British, which I thought that was rather deliberate because a local student kept teasing him for not sounding "French".

Turns out I was right. On our way out of ucd, I spoke with him a bit more and his English twang gently wore off into a natural-sounding French accent.

So what I learnt today was that people expect your accent should correspond to your geographic origin, hence represent your heritage/ upbringing. That I did not sound "Asian" to Nigerian girl and Hawaiian boy somehow made me a less authentic Singaporean. Similarly for English-French guy.

Underlying this expectation is the idea that one person should speak with only one (stable) accent. The reality is accents are a cumulative linguistic resource, so people sufficiently exposed to multiple/ hybrid cultures may develop more than one accent. Which accent to use, is then a choice.

So I realised I had chosen to speak in an Americanish accent, because I believed it would be more easily understood, because the American accent approximates European ones more than Singaporean.

I think other Singaporean subconsciously do this too. Particularly my own age group. I've noticed we not only attempt to sound more American when interacting with (European) foreigners, but also in some public-speaking contexts, such as at presentations.

At the heart of that lies a belief that an American(ised) accent is globally intelligible, approachable and friendly. This means we think that the American accent is prestigious because it is mobile and universal, not so much that we admire or want to stake claims to the American culture per se. (That is evident from comparing the American and British accents. British prestige seems eclectic.)

This association probably surfaces though the prevalence of American pop and media culture in Singapore, making their sound system less marked to our ears.

Hence in using an American accent, we attempt to identify ourselves as conscientious global citizens who are able to adapt our manner of speech to the given social context.

The main indicator for this system of code-switching is the retention of a Singaporean accent. Singaporeans who wish to adopt a foreign identity tend to calcify their angmoh accents and abandon the one they were brought up speaking.

This means Singaporeans reserve their local accent for local use. It allows them to use the accent (not necessarily Singlish) to build solidarity with fellow countrymen.

The accentual division of labour thus reflects how we also divide up the world strongly through the lenses of the "local" verses the "global". We are very conscious that the two are different 'places' that may require us to use different communicative strategies.

Or at least that's what I think lah.

day 22

The weather has been the utmost miserable. The rains are not so bad, but the winds are crazy. In class this morning I could hear them bellows and swirls just beneath the prof's voice. Things like that makes me grateful to be indoors.

I had a nice weekend. Friday was at Kildare, where I bought nubuck boots and a jumper. I was slightly unwise in deciding to wear the shoes right away though. On the way home it started to rain, so now they have an ugly watermark. On the upside, it's a permanent reminder to keep spraying my boots with the waterproofing stuff.

Saturday was movie with the lads, Jamie and Sammy. We watched Delivery Man. Probably not the choice film, but a decent compromise.


The boys out in the mall watchin the late show at half seven yo

Stayed over at Jamie's, and then it was Sunday meeting. Oh yeah, Jamie said there was a big football match between Scotland and Ireland yesterday. On my way home I saw lots of guys in kilts. It was an odd sight. Kilts always seemed like a touristy gimmick, so to actually see Scottish men (I presume, if not Scotland supporters) walk drunkedly down the streets of Dublin in kilts was quite... disorientating.

If you didn't catch that, Ireland won.

Okay going to make dinner now. Hungers.